


Do Robots Dream of Gender?

by WaferBiscuits



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gender Confusion, Hurt/Comfort, Mid-Game, Nervous Saihara Shuichi, Nonbinary K1-B0 (Dangan Ronpa), One Shot, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29586492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaferBiscuits/pseuds/WaferBiscuits
Summary: Just as Shuichi is cracking open a book in his lab, he gets a knock at the door. It's Keebo, and Keebo needs to talk things out. Things haven't been feeling right for him for a while now. It's not the killing game. It's something else entirely.
Relationships: K1-B0/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Do Robots Dream of Gender?

Shuichi did not like the Ultimate Detective lab that Monokuma had crafted for him. He couldn’t really explain exactly ‘why’ he didn’t like it. Maybe it was because it reminded him too much of his uncle’s flea market styled interior decorating. Thinking of his uncle just made him homesick.

The bottled poison in the cabinets didn’t help his anxiety much. Too often Shuichi had considered gathering it all up and flushing the contents down the nearest toilet. He always stopped himself from actually doing it. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he was stooping to even deeper paranoia.

Even if he hated it, Shuichi found himself spending most of his free time in his lab. It was a good hideaway from everyone else when everything felt too heavy.

Which was all the time these days.

The Victorian armchairs were stiff as hell, but adequate for reading. Shuichi propped himself up in one and cracked open a Ray Bradbury short story collection he had plucked from the library. He liked more old-fashioned sci-fi. Maybe it was a little masochistic to dabble into science fiction with the situation he was in, but it was better than a murder mystery novel.

He tucked up his legs and tried to contort himself into a semi-comfortable ball, with the book propped up on his knees. The lighting in his lab was murky at best, only a foggy desk lamp and a fireplace that never went out. He had to lean his face in close to read the print.

Someone was knocking at the door.

As tempting as it was to play dead and pretend to not be in, Shuichi couldn’t do it. He knew he’d feel guilty about it hours after if he did. Sighing, he unfolded himself and straightened up. “Hello?” he called.

Keebo’s muffled voice called back. “Shuichi? Can I come in?”

“One second!” Shuichi put his book aside and went for the door.

He could hear Keebo shuffling around outside, the rustle of metal plates brushing together. Something was up, then. Keebo wasn’t really the type to do a lot of nervous fidgeting unless something was really wrong.

Out of everyone still alive, Keebo was one of the few people that Shuichi had gotten close enough with to call a friend. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but surreal circumstances made for bizarre relationships.

Shuichi unclicked the lock and eased the door open.

Keebo was looking at the floor, his face tilted so that it was partially hidden by his illuminated collar. He was wrenching his hands together like he didn’t know what else to do with them. 

“I’m so sorry, Shuichi. I don’t want to bother you,” he said, the digitized hush of his voice sheepish. “I can come by later, if you’d like.”

“No, Keebo, it’s fine.” Shuichi opened the door a little wider and coaxed him in. “I only have the door locked because…” His voice died out. He couldn’t finish.

Keebo stepped inside and flicked his gaze up to look at Shuichi. Their soft blue glow seemed to flicker as he whispered. “Yes, it’s understandable, even if it is unfortunate to admit.”

“I guess.” Shuichi closed the door behind them and snapped the lock back into place. “You want to sit down?” He gestured towards the set of less-than-inviting Jane Austin chairs.

“As long as I’m not taking you from anything important.”

“You’re really not. I was just reading.” Shuichi went to ease himself into the chair closest to the fireplace. He didn’t want Keebo to risk overheating.

“Reading what?” Keebo took the chair next to Shuichi’s. A little end table sat between them with a couple of books were perched on top of it, including the Bradbury collection.

Shuichi picked it up. “I don’t think you’d like it, to be honest.” He handed it to Keebo. “It’s like, weird fantastical science fiction. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Keebo took the book and looked over the dust jacket. “The author’s name is familiar,” he said, humming thoughtfully. “I think the Professor might have had some of his work around the lab.” He flipped it open to the table of contents and scanned it over. His lit-up eyes acted as a makeshift reading light.

“Really? From what you’ve told me about him, that doesn’t surprise me.” Shuichi readjusted himself to sit cross-legged in his chair. The springs in the cushions squawked. “Bradbury has a more humanistic approach to science fiction.”

“Humanistic, huh?” Looking thoughtful, Keebo closed the book and set it back on the table.

Shuichi wasn’t sure whether or not he had said something wrong. He cleared his throat. “So, uh, what’s up?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

Keebo sighed. He slumped forward and rested his arms on his legs. The antenna on top of his head swiveled back and forth in thought. “It’s difficult to explain,” he finally said, his voice deadened from his collar.

Shuichi forced an awkward chuckle. “I think that can be said for a lot of what’s going on.”

“It’s not quite that, though.” Keebo kept his eyes to the floor. “I mean, maybe it is? I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

Keebo clasped his hands together and looked everywhere but Shuichi. “We just had three more people die, but that’s not the only thing that’s been, I don’t quite know which adjective would be most appropriate to use, but, ‘troubling’ me? ‘Worrying’ me?” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “I feel, I think, distressed.”

“But not just about the murders?” Shuichi prodded. “Or the executions? Something else?”

“Is that bad?” Keebo glanced up at Shuichi, his eyes wide. “It feels like it might be selfish to be thinking about myself when three people were just killed days ago.”

“You can feel both things, Keebo. That doesn’t make you selfish.” Shuichi made himself smile. “It’s normal to feel conflicting emotions like that.”

Keebo looked back to the floor. “It feels overwhelming,” he whispered. “I can understand now why humans suffer from anxiety disorders.”

Shuichi wanted to say something like ‘I think you might be one of those people’, but he kept his mouth shut. He was one to talk, after all. His bedtime routine usually involved at least one panic attack along with a variety pack of nightmares.

Keebo went on. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and in retrospect I think it’s been on my mind for a long time. I think it’s partly to do with this being my first real experience with peers developmentally similar to myself. I’ve only ever spent time with the Professor before being taken here.”

“I can’t imagine how much pressure that must be for you, Keebo,” Shuichi murmured. “I know you’ve told me that before, but, I don’t know. It just always amazes me.” He smiled a little. “I mean, if it were me, I’d be so overwhelmed that I’d just hole up in my room.”

“Ah, well.” Keebo’s cheeks turned pink. “I did that, for a little bit at least, but I like to think I’ve gotten better at socializing.” He stumbled over his words a little.

“You should give yourself more credit than that.”

“Well, regardless of all that.” Keebo huffed. “I don’t really know how to describe this, well, this weird feeling I’ve been having. I don’t think it had any specific catalyst, but…”

Shuichi watched as Keebo clutched at the plating of his knees and screwed his owlish eyes shut.

Eventually, Keebo took a deep breath and went on. “When Kokichi started calling me ‘Keeboy’, I experienced an emotion that was a lot like ‘discomfort’, but at the time I assumed it was just because I was being teased.”

Shuichi frowned. “Teasing is too nice of a way to put it considering some of the things I’ve heard him say to you.”

“Indeed, he is probably the most robophobic individual I’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with.” Keebo leaned back, like he was trying to relax his posture. His joints whirred softly as he adjusted himself, arms resting at his sides.

“I know that a lot of what he’s called me has been bad, but none of it ever gave me as intense of a reaction as ‘Keeboy’. It made me concerned that there might be something wrong with my processing core. I’ve run diagnostics, but I can’t detect any kind of malfunction in my software.”

Keebo’s voice wobbles a little as he speaks. No doubt he would be tearing up if he were human. His body began to tremble, shoulders hitching up. Shuichi isn’t even sure if he’s aware that he’s doing it.

“Keebo?” Shuichi leaned over and reached out. He put his hand on Keebo’s shoulder. He didn’t know if Keebo could ‘feel’ pressure the same way as a human, but he squeezed his grip anyway. “Hey, can I ask you something? And this is okay?”

Keebo nodded. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “And sure… That’s fine.” He looked flushed.

“Okay, so, this is going to come out sounding a little weird. I’m sorry. I guess I just don’t know how else to put it other than this but – “ Shuichi took a breath and braced himself. “The Professor, did he design you to be a specific kind of person?” He felt embarrassed as he said it. He quickly drew his hand back. “Sorry, I really hope that wasn’t offensive.”

“No, no!” Keebo looked up at him, surprised but not angry. “I appreciate your sensitivity, Shuichi, truly, but please be assured that that’s not an inappropriate question in the slightest.” He reached out and gently pressed his fingertips to Shuichi’s knee before drawing back, a tiny and shy touch.

Shuichi wished he could have had the chance to take his hand. He didn’t have time to dwell on the impulse of that thought because Keebo was looking at him, his eyes suddenly brighter than before.

“But, to answer your question, no. If anything, the Professor designed me with a base-level AI core that has the ability to self-modify. That’s the only way true artificial sapience can occur. Creating a robot to follow a pre-planned personality profile just defeats the purpose if your end-goal is to create a life that’s a perfect duplicate of the human experience.”

“That makes sense.” Shuichi nodded and pressed the side of his hand to his mouth, a thoughtful tic of his. “It also might explain a hunch I have, but can I ask something else?”

“Sure.” Keebo looked puzzled. “But I don’t think I understand where you’re getting at.”

“Well, it’s pretty simple, honestly.” Shuichi looked Keebo in the eye. “You say that, but does that include your gender? Maybe that’s why Kokichi calling you that makes you feel strange?”

Keebo didn’t say anything for a moment, but Shuichi could hear the clicking and crunching of whatever processers were in his chest. His cooling fans seemed to get louder to compensate. They kicked in with a low rumble.

Shuichi waited. He wanted to try and reach for Keebo’s shoulder again. He stopped himself.

Finally, after a moment, Keebo took a deep breath. Shuichi remembered when Keebo had told him that his breathing was entirely aesthetic, a way to make him ‘more human’.

“The Professor always told me that I was a boy,” he said. He was so quiet that Shuichi had to lean to hear him. “He always told me that my brain was meant to replicate the ‘teenage boy’ experience.”

Shuichi didn’t think about what he said next. He went with his gut. “Maybe the Professor didn’t realize just how good his AI was?” he asked.

“I don’t understand, though.” Keebo shook his head. His hair seemed to stand on end with electricity, cackling and sizzling. “I know I’m not a girl. I know that. Thinking about myself that way feels wrong, like it wouldn’t match.”

“Okay, that’s good!” Shuichi tried to keep his tone encouraging. “That’s a good way to put it.”

“Is it?” Keebo’s shoulders still shook. He kept his posture hunched over, like he was curling in on himself. “To be honest, it feels embarrassing to say things like that.” His faceplates were still flushed.

“It’s really not, though.” Shuichi quickly butted in. “Maybe you can elaborate a little on that, though?” He knew he might have been pushing too hard, but he had to keep going. He had to help, otherwise Keebo was just going to languish in an environment that was already hellish enough to begin with.

Shuichi wasn’t an assertive person. He struggled with even the most basic feats of getting himself to be heard. The prospect of taking the initiative made him want to dry heave.

Still, he had to try.

The springs in his chair cushion screeched as he stood. Keebo flinched at the sound and glanced at him. His antenna twitched in a strange and skittish way.

“Is it okay if I sit in front of you?” asked Shuichi. He stepped to Keebo’s side, a hand on his chair’s arm rest.

“Um, sure.” Keebo smiled weakly. “Although, there’s some suspicious stains on your lab’s carpeting that I’d try to keep clear of if I were you.”

Shuichi chuckled. “Yeah, they came with the room.” He eased himself cross-legged at the robot’s pointed feet. “Monokuma really spared no expense in getting that authentic lived-in feel.”

Keebo’s own laugh came out a little forced, but it was something. It helped embolden Shuichi to keep going.

He reached up and put a hand on the Keebo’s rounded knee joint. “This okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Keebo’s voice seemed to cut out for a second, like his speech had been muted or glitched out. His eyes were intently focused on Shuichi’s shoulder. “That’s fine.”

Shuichi smiled. “Okay, so, back to before.” He pressed his thumb against the metal in a slow, rhythmic pattern. He hoped it would come across as comforting. “Can you tell me why it ‘wouldn’t match’ for you to be a girl?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Keebo looked surprised. He waved a hand over himself. “I have a built-in pocket protector and LED buttons to emulate a dress shirt. Every tiny detail in my design dictates what I am, what the Professor wanted me to be.”

“But is that what _you_ want to be?” Shuichi squeezed his grip. He kept his eyes firmly on Keebo’s face. “Do you like them?”

“That’s the thing.” Keebo shook his head, his face scrunched up in frustration. “I _do_ like them! I think my design serves me both functionally and emotionally. My body is too rigid to comfortably wear human clothing, so it’s nice to have aspects of my appearance simulate the experience.”

“Have you ever considered, I don’t know, changing them?”

“Even if I could, I don’t think so.” Keebo pressed his lips together in a thin line. “And I can see where you might be going with this, and while I do agree with your thesis, I feel like I am rather confident in my assertion that I have no wish to be seen as a girl.”

“Okay.” Shuichi pat Keebo’s knee a couple times before pulling away. “So you don’t like being called a boy, and you don’t see yourself as a girl, right?”

“I guess?” Keebo barked a curt laugh. It sounded like feedback from a microphone and it made Shuichi wince. “Sorry, no, you’re right. I think. But then what does that make me?” His body began to shake again, the lights of his eyes flickered. “An object?”

“No way.” Shuichi had to consciously raise his voice to be as firm as he needed to be. “You’re not an object, Keebo, you’re a robot. The best one!” He spoke like he did in the trials, with conviction and assuredness. “Some humans feel the same way, like they don’t fit in a binary. I knew a few people like that before coming here.”

Keebo’s expression was blank. “Huh?” His hair seemed to relax as the nervous static cling ebbed away from it. A few limp tufts fell over his brow.

Shuichi kept on. “There’s a lot of nuance to it, but that’s the general idea. Some people just feel like something other than what most people assume are the only two options. Some people don’t feel like anything.”

“That…” Keebo took a deep breath. “That certainly extends my options, I suppose.” He spoke with a frightened twinge to his voice that made Shuichi scramble to keep talking.

“It’s a lot to take in at once,” he said, “and that’s okay. There’s no time limit to making a decision about yourself. That’s the nice thing about it.”

Maybe them being in a killing game negated that a little bit. Shuichi quickly shoved the thought out of his head as soon as it reared its head and clawed at his brain. Right now, the circumstances of their imprisonment didn’t matter.

Keebo seemed to relax. The pulsing of his inner processors quieted down to something a little less frantic. “That helps to think about…”

Shuichi smiled and sat up, perching on his knees to meet Keebo at eye level. “Can I hug you?” he asked.

“Oh, um.” Keebo looked away, a nervous beeping trill sounded from his chest. “Sure, of course, though admittedly I’m not sure you’d get anything out of it. I’m not exactly… huggable.”

“Doesn’t really matter.” Shuichi reached out, hands unfurling, smile warm. “Here.”

Keebo awkwardly stretched his arms out, rubber ligaments creaking on their hinges as he moved in and settled his head on Shuichi’s shoulder.

Shuichi could only hug Keebo so tightly. Keebo was a rock solid presence with angular edges, but not cold like Shuichi was expecting. There was a cozy warmth there, the heat radiating from Keebo’s inner mechanisms made him feel even more alive than he already was.

Keebo’s hair lodged itself in Shuichi’s face, and Shuichi marveled at how it felt against his cheek. It didn’t feel like organic hair; it didn’t have any kind of silky or oily feel, let alone any kind of smell. It felt more like fibers from a stuffed animal, a fuzzy and nostalgic texture.

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Keebo’s face was firmly situated in the crook of Shuichi’s neck. It was almost too intimate.

Shuichi rubbed at the knobs of Keebo’s raised spinal column, feeling the way the parts rose and fell under his touch. “I’m really, really glad you told me this, Keebo,” he murmured, “that must have been really hard.”

Keebo hummed. “Well, to be honest, I really don’t know if I even made much progress in it. I’m still not sure.”

“Like I said, that’s okay.” Shuichi sighed. “It’s just food for thought. If you want to keep talking about it, just let me know. I don’t mind.”

“Okay…”

“Hey, if you want, I can tell Kokichi to stop calling you that name. I can’t make any promises that he’ll actually stop, but he’s more likely to listen to me than anyone else.”

Shuichi could feel Keebo mimicking the way he was stroking his back.

“That would be very kind of you, Shuichi.”

“Of course.”

Keebo pulled back then, his hands trailing up to Shuichi’s narrow shoulders as he looked at him with a worried frown. “Please don’t talk to him about this, okay?”

“I promise. You have my word.” Shuichi had never heard himself sound so confident. “I swear.”

Keebo’s pensive expression relaxed to a shy smile. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “You’re a good friend, Shuichi.”

Shuichi cleared his throat. “Well, uh, hey! Maybe we can try out some pronouns for you sometime, if you want?” he asked, trying to take back the conversational wheel.

Keebo’s hands trailed down from Shuichi’s shoulders to his hands. He gently grasped them, skin against silicone. “Maybe. I’ll let you know… maybe you can give me some suggestions?” He chuckled. “Sorry, I guess it’s for me to figure out.”

“Only if you want to, Keebo.” Shuichi felt bold. He let his fingers thread together with Keebo’s. “We can always switch it up and I can use he/him when there’s other people around. It’s all in the experimentation of it.”

“Experimentation, huh?” Keebo’s smile turned a little melancholic. “Trial and error.”

“That’s right,” said Shuichi. He took his hands back and stood. “You want to come with me to the dining hall?”

Keebo stood as well. “Yeah, I think… That’d be nice. Decompression from a stressful conversation.” He paused, then stiffened, his hair standing straight on-end. “N-Not that it wasn’t a good talk! Or that I regret anything I said! Or – “

“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” Shuichi cut him off with a pat on the back. “I know what you were trying to say. If anything, I just kind of feel bad for inviting you to the dining hall when you can’t eat.”

“That doesn’t really matter to me, you know.” Keebo shrugged. “Besides, I like the aesthetics of food, and the social practice of gathering for a meal is appealing to me.”

“Heh, that’s true.” Shuichi smiled. “Come on, let’s go.”

They left the lab together, Shuichi leading with Keebo following close behind. For the first time, but not the last.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should probably work on my actual in-progress Shuichi/Keebo stuff but I had to scribble this out since I couldn't fit it in that. Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments always make my day and turn me into a total mess ;//u//; I can't thank you all enough for driving me to make better work. You're incredible. Never forget that.


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